Who invented auntie annes pretzels

Contact us at letters time. Auntie Anne's Pretzels founder, Anne Beiler. By Matt Vella. Related Stories. Already a print subscriber? Anne, in her mids at the time, found herself descending into a world of darkness and depression, and eventually on the brink of suicide.

She became silent and lost her voice. Jonas and Anne drifted apart. Instead, they remained silent partners who simply lived together and went through the motions of family life. Anne sought counsel from her pastor, who used the vulnerability of her grief to manipulate and abuse her for more than six years.

This abuse of spiritual power propelled Anne into intense pain, blame, and shame that she thought would kill her. After confessing all of this to her husband, Jonas and Anne sought counseling and began a journey towards healing. Through the repair of their own marriage, Jonas found himself wanting to help others that were suffering from the same despair and hopelessness. In , the free counseling center that Jonas Beiler had envisioned opened as the Family Information Center in Lancaster County, but the giving did not end there.

Among other groups, Beiler later became involved with the Angela Foundation, named after a daughter who died at 19 months. Auntie Anne was not beyond a few indulgences, though. She and her husband also rode cross-country on motorcycles, visiting family-owned stores along the way. The Auntie Anne's phenomenon steadily worked its way through the malls of America in the mids. The chain had stores at the end of and dwarfed competitors such as Pretzel Time and Gretel's Pretzels.

A far cry from Lancaster County, which claimed to produce 80 percent of the world's pretzel supply, Auntie Anne's opened its first international location in Jakarta, Indonesia, where most people had never even heard of pretzels.

At the time, Auntie Anne's offered ten different types of pretzels and several sauces: caramel, sweet mustard, strawberry cream cheese, honey, marinara, and chocolate. For the sweet tooth, there were cinnamon sugar and Glazin' Raisin--two twisted answers to cinnamon buns. The smell of fresh-baked pretzels proved a powerful calling card; the company also offered free samples. In one case, it sent a pretzel cart dispensing them through a mall in Detroit.

To get the name out, Auntie Anne's locations displayed brochures about nutrition facts, locations, and company history. At the end of , the chain had stores. It continued to play up its Pennsylvania Dutch roots and boasted a considerable number of Amish operators, many of whom were related to each other, although some considered them relatively unsophisticated in business.

They also did not have to pay into the state workers' compensation fund. Like bagels, the pretzel concept was catching on as a low-fat alternative to other mall snacks, such as pizza. Auntie Anne's largest competitor, Pretzelmaker, started in , had stores in , and was developing a line of pretzel sandwiches. Gretel's Pretzels, which grew out of the pretzel business of Restaurant Systems, had just 15 stores.

Fields' Cookies, a master mall marketer, was test-marketing the 'Pretzelwich' at a dozen of its Hot Sam stores under the Pretzel Ovens name. In spite of all the interest in malls, only five percent of mall shoppers ever bought pretzels at the mall.

Beiler took her case to. Auntie Anne's grew to stores in , although it accepted only ten out of 6, franchise applications that year. After some experimentation, "Auntie" Anne created a masterpiece — the same freshly baked goodness you know and love today.

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